1. Field of the Technology
The technology presented herein relates to a storage medium a storing game program, a game apparatus and a game control method. More specifically, the technology relates to a storage medium storing a game program, a game apparatus and a game control method, whereby a game is played through touch operations.
2. Description of the Related Art
One example of this kind of game apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 11-151380 laid-open on Jun. 8, 1999 [A63F 9/22, G09B 15/00, G10H 1/00] (document 1). According to the music-enhancing game machine of document 1, a plurality of enhancing operation members are provided, the player is visually instructed to carry out an enhancing operation in time to music, an enhancing effect is output from the speaker according to the player's enhancing operation.
Also, another example of this kind of game apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3566195 [A63F 13/00] (document 2) issued on Sep. 15, 2004. According to document 2, a reference arrow mark is displayed on the upper part of the screen, and a plurality of timing guide marks moving from the lower part to the upper part of the screen are displayed in time to music. The player steps on the button input area to be operated in exact timing with the instant when a timing guide mark overlaps the reference arrow mark. The player can make a higher score if there is a higher degree of coincidence of the display time of timing guide mark and the player's timing of operation. For a match-up game, the number of timing guide marks on the other player's screen is increased in order to raise the difficulty level of gameplay for the other player.
Furthermore, still another example of this kind of game apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2004-73682 laid-open on Mar. 11, 2004 [A63F 13/00, A63F 13/10] (document 3). According to document 3, each of players of a match-up game uses a touch panel to select an action (technique) to be used by his/her character for make an attack and the character's target of action, within the time limit for input. Then, after a lapse of the input time limit, an attack with the selected technique is launched toward the action target.
In the related arts of document 1 and document 2, however, the player merely performs an operation with timing. Additionally, the enhancing operation members and the button input area are fixedly arranged. They make game operations monotonous. Thus, the player may lose interest in playing the game when he/she has reached a certain level of gameplay.
Moreover, in the related art of document 2, an increased number of the timing guide arrow marks are displayed on the other player's screen for a match-up game, but this merely allows the player to carry out an increased number of game operations and cannot avoid the monotony of game operations, as in the case with the above mentioned art.
Furthermore, in the related art of document 3, the action and the action target need to be specified through the touch panel within the time limit, but no consideration is given to the timing of operation. Also, the action target must be specified by the player under his/her strategies etc. It is thus not determined whether the specified action target is correct or not. That is, the game is just played through the performance of touch operations instead of the use of operating switches, and thus this related art does not provide a game taking advantage of touch panel-specific operations.